Winding Down
by ForeverFalling86
Summary: A body wasn't meant to function for so long, it wore out given time, like most things did. Because nothing is made to last forever.


**A/N: I've written about the mental consequences of living for so long (Forever) but I thought I'd take a crack at the physical. **

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><p><strong>for·ev·er <strong>[fer-**ev**-er]

–_**adverb**_

without ever ending; eternally: _to last forever._

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><p>He'd awoken to a baptism in white. His eyes delicate eyes had snapped shut, searing in agony and as he lay there bathed in pain and confusion a voice had spoken unto him.<p>

_You'll live forever_.

That's what the voice had promised when he was still new and bright. The human cravings that still lingered, not yet washed away by the white, had sparked in joy at the thought. _Forever_. The word had sent a smile across his face- to live forever, wasn't that everyone's dream?

"How many nights is Forever?" he'd asked, basking in the warmth of the light that surrounded him. "How many days?"

When he told the woman who became his grandmother what the voice had promised she'd stared down at him with a sort of pitying look that came with understanding- something he wouldn't gain until he was much later into his Forever, and hers had finally ended.

A few days later she had pulled out a toy from within the folds of her robes: a small wind up doll. Its face had beamed up at him; a tiny little soldier with a sword in hand. His grandmother twisted the turnkey protruding from its tiny back, the gears clicking loudly as they wound before setting in down in front of him. He'd smiled as it began to walk across the tatami, its sword arm waving, silent except for the whirling of the mechanism inside. When its steps became halting he'd reached out and wound it up before putting it down again.

"It just keeps going," he'd grinned as he sat down on the floor beside it. His grandmother had smiled that knowing smile of hers, running a hand through his hair.

"We'll see," she'd said softly, with the hint of a promise coating her tongue.

The doll became his favourite, and with time the paint became chipped- its smile worn away until only the silver of the metal underneath was visible. But everyday he wound it up and watched its small steps, its arm waving as if it was doing battle with an invisible foe. He brought it with him wherever he went, clutched tightly in fingers still pudgy with childhood.

The whirling of the gears became his constant companion until one day Toshiro noticed that the whirling had turned to a whining, and then soon it became a grinding, the doll jerking about slowly, it's sword arm barely moving, until soon the key would no longer turn.

"But grandma," he'd cried, tears slipping down cheeks flushed with sadness as he held it up for her to see. "It's supposed to keep going! Why can't you fix it?"

The woman took the doll delicately into her withered hands and stroked the faded face, a tender look flickering across her own.

_Because nothing is made to last forever. _

He'd taken the doll from her, its little arms hanging heavily at its sides; the battle lost. He put it on a shelf to keep safe and soon the small doll was forgotten like so many childhood things were, left to turn to rust.

He was well into his seventh century when he was called back to his grandmother's side. He'd left home a boy and returned a young man with the world at his feet. She'd sent him off as a woman and now welcomed him home an old maid. She had not been well for many a year, leaving her weak and pale. The face that he remembered from his youth was gone, leaving behind a withered shadow of what it had once been in its place.

He sat by her side and listened as her breathing whistled and rattled in her chest. She reached out, her bones cracking and her movements slow, and stroked his face softly. The hand trembled so he snatched it up and held it tightly, anchoring her.

"You'll be fine," he whispered, his fingertips ghosting over the mottled skin. "We're going to live Forever."

But her Forever had ended that night when the stars hung high in the sky and the earth was bathed in the moon's haze. A small wind up doll watched over him from its place on the shelf as he clutched her close and cried.

Years passed, and the new and bright boy that he'd been had disappeared to be replaced by one _not _so new and _not _so bright. Forever had seemed to be such a grand thing once upon a time when he'd still be pure like the white he'd woke in. But understanding was beginning to creep into the corners of his mind, leaving him tainted and worn.

"How many _battles_ is Forever?" The words had fallen from his lips one dark night when the blood had seeped through his shoes and stained his toes a rusty red. "How many funerals?"

Time marched on, and although he still looked young it weighed heavily on him. His shoulders slumped under the weight of it, and scars built up atop others until he wasn't sure what was skin and what was scar tissue. When his knees began to ache and lock he hadn't worried. Because he still had Forever didn't he?

The centuries passed without recognition, but he could feel them in the way his fingers began to tremble and his back started to pain him. His bones had become brittle and his muscles weak but when he looked in the mirror it was not an old man who stared back, but a young one. He listened as he extended his arm, the movement slow and jerky; heard the agonizing grinding of the bones in his elbow. Was Forever supposed to hurt?

_Pain_ was now his constant companion and walking became a chore in itself, his joints worn away by centuries of constant use. Old wounds he could barely remember would sear in white hot pain when the cold he had always loved began to seep into his bones.

But time continued it's never ending march and his shoulders continued to slump, his hands continued to tremble, and his heart continued to shudder in his chest even when he began to wish that it would _not_. And all the while, it fluttered at the ends of his consciousness like a memory almost forgotten; the whirling of gears, a fading smile, a childhood that had ended so very long ago, and the sour taste of a promise come true.

He was lying in bed years later, his breath rattling in his chest and his heart struggling to continue beating; dying, when it finally came to him like lightning out of a clear blue sky: understanding. It hurt, like all knowledge does, but he embraced it with weak arms and held it close to his slowing heart. It had danced in the corners of his mind, haunting him whenever he looked in the mirror. But now he knew; it was finally time.

A body wasn't meant to function for so long, it wore out given time, like most things did. And he could recall a toy clutched in chubby fingers and a gentle hand running through his hair; the air thick with the sound of a promise. He could remember the look on his grandmother's face as she stared down at him all those centuries ago; pitying. She'd known. She'd always known and since her death he realized he had too. The voice had been _wrong_.

_Because nothing is made to last Forever. _

And somewhere a wind up doll sat watching.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading and please don't forget to review.<strong>

**ForeverFalling.**


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